Constitutional Change in a One-Party State: Lao PDR’s Decennial Review

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic has embarked on a process to amend its constitution for the first time since 2015. Expected to be completed by 2025, the amendment process follows a decennial review cycle, and is led by a committee charged with assessing the current constitution, soliciting inputs, and drafting proposed amendments. Likely reforms may focus on creating a new level of subnational government, improving local governance structures and refining human rights provisions. What is clear is that all proposals will align with the Party’s vision, with approval all-but-guaranteed in the one-party National Assembly – writes Kazuo Fukuda

Introduction

Media recently announced that the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (“Lao PDR”), classified as a landlocked least developed country situated in Southeast Asia, has begun work to review and amend its constitution. Originally promulgated in 1991, 16 years after Lao PDR was formally founded, the Constitution of Lao PDR has been amended only twice before: in 2003 and 2015. As it has become a custom in Lao PDR to review and amend the Constitution every 10-12 years, the timing should not come as a surprise to observers. Indeed, National Assembly President Xaysomphone Phomvihane (the son of Kaysone Phomvihane, the first leader of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party) stressed ‘the need to amend the constitution in response to changes in modern times’ during the 30th anniversary celebration of the 1991 Constitution in August 2021. Lao PDR’s ambition to graduate from the least developed country (LDC) status in 2026 certainly prompts such constitutional reform. Unless some urgent needs emerge unexpectedly, it is conceivable that from now on, every other legislature will be tasked with reviewing and amending the Constitution towards the end of its five-year term to maintain this 10-year cycle.

The following piece is inevitably descriptive in nature and with preliminary analysis, as the work of the National Committee for the Amendment of the Constitution (“the Committee”) has just begun, with the Committee starting its consultation meetings on 17 July in the Vientiane Capital. As such, specifics of the process remain to be seen. With that mentioned, this piece will briefly analyze the political dynamics in Lao PDR, the background to the formation of the Committee, the review process, areas of potential reform, and next steps, to the best of the author’s knowledge.

Political Dynamics

Born out of the civil war struggle in 1975, Lao PDR is one of the world’s five remaining communist states. To cement its communist ideology, the 1991 Constitution of Lao PDR crystallized the status of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (“the Party”) as the country’s “leading nucleus” (Article 3) and subordinated all state organizations to “the principle of democratic centralism” (Article 5), thereby effectively establishing centralized, one-party rule. Much of the Constitution has been revised and/or newly introduced in the two constitutional amendments. Yet, Article 3 has remained completely untouched and “the principle of democratic centralism” under Article 5 unchanged.

The 1991 Constitution of Lao PDR crystallized the status of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party as the country’s “leading nucleus” . . . 

It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that everything begins and ends with the Party in Lao PDR. Constitutional amendment is no exception: in May 2024, the 13-member Politburo, the Party’s principal policy-making organ, authorized the formation of the Committee and set out the framework for the constitutional amendment process. Hence, the Committee is expected to align its work with the Politburo’s vision. In fact, National Assembly President Xaysomphone Phomvihane stated at the Committee meeting in June that ‘the planned changes will better support the Party and government’s development goals.’

Formation of the Committee

Led by National Assembly President Xaysomphone Phomvihane, the Committee is composed of 21 members from the Party, the government, the judiciary, and the National Assembly. They are mainly minister- and vice minister-level officials. The size of the Committee is comparable to the 17-member committee that previously developed the 2015 Constitution. As stipulated under the 2021 Law on Making Legislation, the Committee is primarily responsible for ‘collect[ing] information and conduct[ing] public consultations in a broader manner than making and amending of laws’ (Article 14). The 2024 Politburo Resolution that established the Committee vests the Committee with the rights and duties to: (1) oversee the compilation of comments and revisions to the draft constitution's content, and report to the Politburo and the Party Central Committee Secretariat; and (2) present the revised draft of the Constitution to the National Assembly Standing Committee and the National Assembly for consideration (Article 3).

While the Committee ensures coherence of the overall document in the amendment process, its three main sub-committees assist with technical aspects of drafting: the Drafting (Content) Sub-Committee, the Secretariat, and the Propaganda Sub-Committee. The Content Sub-Committee arguably plays the most crucial role, as it is responsible for the actual drafting. As in the case of developing the 2015 Constitution, the Secretariat is located at the National Assembly’s Law Committee. For the 2015 constitutional amendment, it was reportedly headed by the vice president of the National Assembly’s Law Committee (who holds the same title under the current legislature). In the current amendment process, however, the Secretariat is led by National Assembly Vice President and Law Committee President (and former Minister of Justice) Chaleun Yiapaoher. This may indicate the increased importance that the Party has attached to the constitutional amendment work. The Secretariat plays an important facilitation role in compiling proposals for constitutional amendments from the sub-committees (and possibly more sub-committees to be created), as well as from the public, and eventually reports back to the Committee.

Review Process

The Committee began the review process with an internal consultation meeting in June to assess the current constitution. The Committee has been organizing consultation meetings in the capital and plans to hold meetings in all 17 provinces. The main objectives are to assess the implementation of the 2015 Constitution over the past decade and identify gaps, challenges, and issues to be addressed, all of which will feed into the actual drafting of the constitutional amendment at a later stage. Based on the findings and outcomes derived from these consultation meetings, line ministries and agencies at the central level are also expected to hold a series of meetings to delve into potential areas of improvement. Once a draft is prepared, the Committee is required under the Law on Making Legislation to post the draft for public comments for 60 days, allowing input from nationals and non-nationals, through various media such as websites (e.g., the Official Gazette) and newspapers (Article 8). Interestingly, the Law remains silent on the responsibility and accountability of the drafting committee regarding the handling of public comments once collected.

It is likely that the Committee will organize a series of seminars and workshops with political leadership and top officials in the coming months as soon as it completes a preliminary draft. The draft will then be submitted to the National Assembly for deliberation during the 8th or 9th Ordinary Session. The 8th Session, which may be convened sometime in November or December this year, is the more probable scenario, with the 9th Session taking place in June or July next year. The Committee will incorporate comments received from these sessions and further revise the draft amendments. As the ultimate presumed goal is for the 9th Legislature to approve the new constitutional amendment before the end of its term (the end of 2025), it is likely that the National Assembly will approve the amendments either at or before the 10th Ordinary Session sometime in November or December 2025. This is an extremely tight timeline to discuss, draft, and adopt a document of this magnitude. However, that seems to have been the norm in approaching the constitutional amendment process in Lao PDR: as an indication, during the previous process, the Committee organized a series of seminars and workshops with top officials and finally submitted its draft amendment to the National Assembly in time for the 8th Ordinary Session of the 7th Legislature in December 2014, which was subsequently approved at the 10th Ordinary Session in December 2015. As such, it is likely that the Committee will follow a similar timeframe.

Areas of Potential Reform

As was the case in the last reform process, the National Assembly’s Standing Committee apparently issued the Proposal for Amending the 2015 Constitution of Lao PDR in May 2024 to serve as the overall guidance for the upcoming constitutional amendment-related work. The Proposal remains publicly unavailable until the Committee completes the assessment on the implementation of the current constitution, but reports suggest that the upcoming constitutional amendment will center around four areas: (1) party and mass organizations, such as the Lao Front for National Construction; (2) social and economic affairs; (3) state powers; and (4) public security and national defense.

The Committee is reportedly contemplating the introduction of a new level called ta seng (similar to a county) that would fall between district and village.

One of the significant key changes likely to be included, that high-ranking officials have repeatedly mentioned to the author, concerns the structure of local administration. Namely, while the 2015 Constitution stipulates that the country is divided into three levels of local administration: province, district, and village (Article 85), the Committee is reportedly contemplating the introduction of a new level called ta seng (similar to a county) that would fall between district and village. The primary rationale is to ease the administrative burden on certain districts and address a sense of disconnect between district and village, as some urban districts have more than 100 villages to manage. If pursued, this would represent a major structural overhaul at the local level, as each of the three branches would be required to establish relevant offices at yet another level and to reconfigure roles, responsibilities, and powers across all levels and their relations within and across branches.

Another potential area of reform that has been raised is people’s fundamental rights, an area that must be further improved in the Lao context (see, for example, the kind of recommendations Lao PDR has received under the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review). This aligns with recent discussions, particularly during a high-level symposium on constitutional amendments held by the Lao and Vietnamese National Assemblies on 4 July. Importantly, the 2015 Constitution introduced the phrase “human rights” for the first time in the constitutional text, and further revisions in the chapter titled “Fundamental Rights and Obligations of Citizens” are well within the realm of possibility. For instance, one high-ranking official has reported to the author the possibility of explicitly constitutionalizing such rights as due process and right to a fair trial, including the right to bring cases to court. The amendment process could also present an ideal opportunity to revisit and refine the language of existing constitutional rights. For one, the construction of articles such as Article 43 (‘Lao citizens have the right and freedom to believe or not to believe in religions which are not contrary to the laws.’) and Article 44 (‘Lao citizens have the right and freedom of speech, press and assembly; and have the right to set up associations and to stage demonstrations which are not contrary to the laws.’) themselves may raise questions over their constitutionality. Currently, ordinary laws could unilaterally and arbitrarily alter what these constitutional articles would mean to the extent that they have little-to-no substantive meaning, and potentially undermine the principle of constitutional supremacy enshrined under Article 117 (‘The Constitution of the Lao People's Democratic Republic is a fundamental law of the nation. All laws must comply with the Constitution’). As such, returning to the language used in the 2003 Constitution for Article 43 on religious freedom (which did not include the clause ‘which are not contrary to the laws’) would be desirable for both articles to ensure better protection of fundamental rights and also to uphold the constitutional order.

In terms of state governance, it would not be surprising if the Committee revisited the chapters on the National Assembly and Local People’s Assemblies. The 2015 Constitution effectively revived the system of Local People’s Assemblies that used to exist prior to the 1991 Constitution. Tapping into the experiences and lessons learned from the establishment and functioning of Local People’s Assemblies in the past decade, the Committee could further clarify the relationship between the National Assembly and local assemblies as well as the roles and powers of local assemblies vis-à-vis local administration and local courts.

Next Steps

Given the nature of a one-party state, the Constitution provides the National Assembly a fairly straightforward path for amendments: all it takes for adoption of the amendment is ‘the affirmative votes of more than two-thirds of the total number of the National Assembly members’ (Article 118), which then will be promulgated by the President of the State (Article 67). Since all candidates for election are essentially vetted for their allegiance to the Party, as stipulated under the Law on Election of Members of the National Assembly and Local Councils, and are approved by party organizations and the Party-led National Election Committee, the process of reviewing and amending the constitution every 10-12 years is virtually guaranteed to be seamless.

It should be reiterated that the Committee has currently only scratched the surface of its expected work. Once it completes the assessment of the 2015 Constitution, the Committee will embark on the substantive work of constitutional amendment. Time will tell how the amendment process unfolds. One thing almost certain is that the whole process will move much more quickly and smoothly in Lao PDR than in many countries. The Committee will likely develop its preliminary draft within months, and the National Assembly is expected to approve it by the end of 2025 at the latest. Observers will soon see the concrete direction and vision embraced by the Committee (and ultimately the Party) and how much impact the finalized amendment would have on Lao society.

Kazuo (Kaz) Fukuda is an associate professor of comparative constitutional law at the College of Global Engagement, Kansai Gaidai University located in Osaka, Japan. He holds a Ph.D. from Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law and has previously worked at the United Nations Development Programme in Lao PDR.

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Suggested citation: Kazuo (Kaz) Fukuda, 'Constitutional Change in a One-Party State: Lao PDR’s Decennial Review', ConstitutionNet, International IDEA, 18 August 2024, https://constitutionnet.org/news/voices/constitutional-change-one-party-state-lao-pdrs-decennial-review

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